


Marshmallows, Morality, and Murder (also contains: frustration, flowers, friendship)

by grainjew



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Tsuna Leads A Life Of Great Suffering, and negotiations thereof, byakuran theres this thing called like. taking your own death seriously., theres Emotions in this fic but also i like to think its funny in between that, tsunas narration is still the MOST fun thing to write ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 16:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15199022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Tsuna visits Byakuran in his hospital room after the excitement from the Representative Battles has died down a little.Or: Tsuna doesn't get poisoned by weird flavored marshmallows, but he does make a friend“Um.” Tsuna stared at him, kind of helplessly. “But Ikilledyou.”“Congratulations,” said Byakuran, pulling a paper bag from thin air. “Have a marshmallow.”





	Marshmallows, Morality, and Murder (also contains: frustration, flowers, friendship)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuzujuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuzujuk/gifts).



Visiting Byakuran in his rebuilt hospital room took less work than Tsuna felt it really should, if only because in his experience everything with Byakuran involved immediately got kind of bewildering. And also because what hospital lets a stuttering middle-schooler just up and visit someone like Byakuran or the Varia. Well, a hospital owned by Hibari, but that was beside the point.

Normally Tsuna would have just visited Enma and avoided all rest of the violent villains he called his friends and allies like the plague, but Tsuna was finding to his horror that he kind of felt responsible for them. _Him_ , responsible for the likes of _Xanxus_ and _Hibari_. If that wasn’t enough to send a shiver through him then the thought that he also kind of felt responsible for the _Arcobaleno_ sure finished the job.

But well, this had been Tsuna’s plan, originally. He was the one who called them together and as much as he shuddered to think it he had been the one standing at the head of his mother’s kitchen table and asking for an alliance and their compliance. So. Technically. Since they got injured. He should check in on them. Since they were his friends and allies and for some unholy reason he trusted them and got worried if they were hurt even though they pretty much uniformly tried to hurt _him_ whenever they saw him.

The thought that he had only a few days ago gone to great effort to _avert_ the death of the smirking baby who caused all this nonsense had him questioning his own compulsions. Although that at least was normal.

So, after having a wine glass and half a plate of beef stir-fry tossed casually at him by Xanxus and his eardrums thoroughly pierced by Squalo (his body narrowly avoided a similar piercing) — clearly those two were recovering well — as well suffering through all the other indignities visited upon him by grumpy hospital-bound participants in organized crime, he knocked politely on Byakuran’s door.

“Come in~” said Byakuran’s voice with a level of cheer that meant he either knew it was Tsuna on the other side of the door (possible, Byakuran was always pulling out weird abilities from parallel worlds and also Tsuna wasn’t sure anyone he knew in the mafia would actually bother to knock before busting down the door, except maybe Yuni) or he was actually that cheerful at literally everyone who visited him. Which was also possible. Tsuna really never knew, with Byakuran.

“Um, hi,” said Tsuna, slipping past the door.

Byakuran was laying sprawled out on top of his hospital bed, Bluebell nowhere to be seen. As Tsuna entered, he sat up and swung his feet to dangle over the edge, patted the space on the mattress next to him to invite Tsuna to sit down.

He was all gangly and Tsuna’s age, his feet just brushing the floor and his elbows sticking out at angles, and suddenly Tsuna realized that like this, he actually seemed something like human.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?” asked Byakuran, when Tsuna lingered by the closed door uncertainty. “I sat up just for you, and everything!”

Byakuran, horribly powerful world conqueror, had not really been a tangible human being - he had been an adult, and merciless, and an obstacle in the way of getting everyone home. Even Byakuran, unexpectedly alive and even more unexpectedly an ally, had been a powerful and trustworthy force but not quite an actual person with real, not life-or-death weird fantasy mafia concerns.

Not a human-shaped person, like this Byakuran, who had produced a stem of lilies from somewhere to gesture with obnoxiously as he tried to get Tsuna to go sit down.

And just as suddenly as he could see Byakuran as human, and real, and his own person, Tsuna remembered that Byakuran had died at his hands.

“Oh come _on_ ,” huffed Byakuran, pushing himself to his feet and stalking over to where Tsuna stood frozen. He snatched one of Tsuna’s arms, and Tsuna let himself be tugged across the room, stumbling, and then tossed unceremoniously at the bed. “There, much better.”

“Sorry!” apologized Tsuna once he had negotiated himself to something less _sprawled_ and more _sitting._ “I was just… distracted.”

“Tsunayoshi-kun, you’re way too nice.”

“Sorry!” _He sounds like Reborn._

Byakuran laughed at him. “ _Way_ too nice, you _and_ Yuni.”

“Um.” Tsuna stared at him, kind of helplessly. “But I _killed_ you.”

“Congratulations,” said Byakuran, pulling a paper bag from thin air. “Have a marshmallow.”

Tsuna looked at the pale pink confection in Byakuran’s outstretched hand and said, “Um.”

“They’re rose flavored~”

Tsuna stared at him dubiously. “And not poisoned?” It was a reasonable concern, after living in the same house as Bianchi.

Byakuran scoffed. “Oh come on, I have _some_ morals.”

“You took over the world,” objected Tsuna, taking the marshmallow anyways, against all his better sense.

“Yeah, but I’ve never poisoned a marshmallow. ‘Sides, you killed me,” said Byakuran, as though Tsuna needed a reminder.

“Which I, I can’t say I’m sorry for,” explained Tsuna, wincing as he stumbled over his words, “cause you were gonna kill everyone - which is still a terrible idea! - but, like, you, I, you don’t—?”

“Seriously, Tsunayoshi-kun, I don’t mind,” said Byakuran, grinning way too cheerily for the topic of _his own death at Tsuna’s hands_. “Hadn’t gotten my ass kicked in _ages_. It was fun!”

 _Why do I know absolutely zero normal people? Right. Reborn._ Tsuna could feel a headache coming on. And yet even that familiar stressed exasperation couldn’t push away the crushing guilt that had been slowly eating at him ever since he saw Byakuran reduced to ashes by his own hands. Since he finally saw, only minutes ago, Byakuran as a real person with a life that Tsuna had just… _ended_.

“You’re not used to killing people,” said Byakuran. Tsuna didn’t bother with an answer, and it didn’t look like Byakuran was expecting one. Besides, it was obvious. “I heard you deliberately left Bermuda alive, when you fought him?”

“Uh,” said Tsuna. “Yeah? I mean, I wasn’t trying to _kill_ him, I mean, I don’t wanna kill _anyone_ , I mean. No. Yes. Of course I didn’t kill him.”

Wordlessly, Byakuran handed him another of those pink marshmallows. Tsuna took it, because he hadn’t died of the first one yet.

“I mean, he was just trying his best, right?” he continued. “Of course, like, he was gonna get Reborn and everyone killed, so we had to stop him, but there was no call for _killing_ him. There’s no call for killing anyone!” He stared down at his hands, felt the passion leave him as he slumped. “I don’t even want to fight anyone…”

“Awwwww,” complained Byakuran. Tsuna looked up to see him pouting, like an actual five-year-old. “But it’s always so much _fun_ when Tsunayoshi-kun is scary!”

“Byakuran…” Tsuna dropped his face into his hands and sighed. _Fun for you, maybe_. “How did I even end up friends with you people?”

And then Byakuran’s face was in his face, grinning, as he grabbed Tsuna’s wrists towards him in glee. “You think we’re friends, Tsunayoshi-kun?”

“Um… I guess?” said Tsuna, trying to keep up with Byakuran’s sudden changes in demeanor. “I mean, we fought together, and you’re not trying to kill me, so I think that makes us friends?” He paused. “Uh. As long as you don’t mind. Cause of, uh, the whole thing where I killed you. That.”

“Not at all!” Byakuran hadn’t let go of Tsuna’s wrists. It was really kind of awkward. Also his smile didn’t dim, which was possibly more terrifying than Byakuran intended it to be, but then again Tsuna wasn’t sure whether Byakuran actually _cared_ about how terrifying he came off. Actually on second thought he definitely didn’t care. “I said I had fun, didn’t I~? Plus I, hm,” Byakuran’s mouth made a weird sort of squiggly line, “I kinda had it coming, the whole getting killed thing. A person can only conquer the world so many times before they get bored or get their ass kicked, and I guess the Trinisette picked the second option!”

“Yeah, but, you _died_ ,” said Tsuna, even though he really should have had the sense to back off the point by now before Byakuran decided that he didn’t want to be friends, actually. Even though that was kind of horrifyingly unlikely at this point. Tsuna’s whole life was just a neverending stream of horrifying realizations and every single one of them could be traced back to Reborn.

“New experience!” Byakuran sparkled in what Tsuna could only describe as morbid excitement. He (finally) released Tsuna’s wrists, only to point at him instead. “Anyway, lighten up a bit, Tsunayoshi-kun! You’re all in a fuss about something that doesn’t even matter and that’s no fun at _all_.”

“Have you considered that maybe you’re the one with the disproportionate reaction?” asked Tsuna, a bite in his voice he wasn’t even sure he meant. Then he took a deep breath and put his face in his hands again. “Nevermind.” This conversation was going nowhere. “Nevermind. Just… Nevermind.” If he had to argue his point for one more second in this circular, impossible conversation he would either get a headache or start crying. “So, uh, friends?”

“Friends!” said Byakuran, handing Tsuna another marshmallow. ...which was actually kind of good, wow, he hated that these weirdly-flavored sweets were growing on him, at this rate he would be be joining Haru and Kyoko in their near-daily trips to the cake shop.

“Friends, then,” said Tsuna, and felt something warm settle in him at the confirmation. He brought a small smile to his face. _Friends_. “Do you, uh, want to come over for dinner at some point? Since we’re friends.”

“Will there be marshmallows?” asked Byakuran. His expression was innocently angelic.

Tsuna burst out laughing, and that small warm thing shot out, encompassing the whole of him in a comfortable lightness. “Bring your own marshmallows if you want them that bad, Byakuran,” he answered. And then, catching something of Byakuran’s petty impulsive childishness, he stuck out his tongue.

“You know what?” said Byakuran. “Fair point.”

He threw up his hands and joined the laughter, and the next week he came over for dinner and introduced Tsuna’s mother to edible flowers, and, somehow, that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> i realized partway through writing this that i was writing byakuran pretty similarly to how i write luffy and THAT was a kind of terrifying realization right there
> 
> hey come talk to me @grainjew on tumblr or twitter !!! i dont bite and i like friends !!!!


End file.
